


Soul Sister

by ladyarcherfan3



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5220119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyarcherfan3/pseuds/ladyarcherfan3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saffi had never given up the hope that Mary Jobassa would return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul Sister

The dust cloud appeared on the horizon, the first sign that something was moving in the wasteland, coming from the west. Zamira, laying low on the highest dune, whistled and pointed as the rest of the women gathered around her, peering out from under the blades of their hands to block the sun and passing around the few binoculars and telescopes they had left.

“It’s a big enough cloud, how many vehicles?” Annie asked as she shook her white curls out of the way and lifted the binoculars to her eyes.

“Just one,” Zamira replied. “But big.”

Keeper smirked and clapped her hands. “All right then, girls! Who’s up the tower as bait this time?”

Zamira rolled her eyes and and pointed to Valkyrie. “She’s still the youngest.”

“But I’m not getting any younger,” she replied with good humor, even as she started to shuck her feathered coat.

“None of us are, so up you get.” Saffi collapsed the telescope and fished out a shapeless smock out of Valkyrie’s saddlebag. “Don’t get too sunburnt.”

“If that rig keeps coming at the pace it is, I won’t have anything to worry about.”

As Valkyrie climbed up the tower, the rest of the women gathered their bikes and slipped back down the dune, taking up positions around the tower where they wouldn’t be seen, but could have a clear shot at any vehicle and person that stopped.

The roar of the engines soon filled the air and Valkyrie shrieked and pleaded for help in a very convincing manner. Saffi sighted down the long barrel of her rifle as the rig door creaked open and a lean figure jumped out.

_“I am one of the Vuvalini!  Of the Many Mothers.”_

Saffi’s heart stopped for a long moment and then suddenly raced out of control. The voice was like something out of a dream, familiar, but distorted, unreal. It couldn’t be her, but it sounded so much like…

“Mary?” Saffi whispered without conscious thought.

Next to her, Zamira clapped her telescope to her eye. “It can’t be Mary… She can’t be old enough...”

“Then it has to be-”

_“My initiate mother was KT Concannon!  I am the daughter of Mary Jobassa!”_

“Furiosa,” they breathed at the same time.

Valkyrie’s cry split the air just as loudly as Furiosa’s calls had, but Saffi was already on her bike and kicking it to life. Zamira was only a few steps behind, her voice clear over even the growl of the bikes and the roar of blood in Saffi’s ears.

“It could be a trick, a trap.”

“I know.” Saffi’s heart continued to thunder and her mind started constructing a host of scenarios. Furiosa was back, Mary was with her, injured and unable to speak, but alive. Furiosa came back to them, to bring them with her to get Mary.

_Mary._

She and Mary Jobassa had not grown up together; there had been a few too many years between them for that, and they had been from different clans. But when Mary became The Bullet Singer and joined The Many Mothers as one of the premiere scouts and sharp shooters, their paths crossed more often. Saffi the Healing Book absorbed knowledge like a sponge and would dispense it like a flood at the least prompting. In a few years in Saffi’s company and under her tutelage, Mary’s name became two-fold - she could put a bullet anywhere she wanted as easily as singing, and could seem to call lead out from a body with as much ease. She could take life as easily as she could save it.

It didn’t take long before they were fast friends. Mary came to her continuously with medical questions, and Saffi demanded pointers on her stance and aim with the long rifle. Their voices often rose in both agreement and argument in the council meeting of the Many Mothers. They invaded each other’s homes when they were stationary, and shared a tent when their clans roamed together on trading trips. When Mary’s man died in an accident, Saffi was there to comfort her, and was there when Furiosa was born. They were closer than friends, closer than most lovers, though they were not. Saffi had never had an interest in anyone, and Mary had never reached out to her in that manner. Their relationship was something else.

“Soul Sisters,” Janey of the Poems had declared one day. “Your spirits lock together like puzzle pieces. Very few have such a spirit, or are able to find their match.”

Saffi’s thoughts splintered again. Janey had been lost to them when the Green Place died, as had so many others. Would Mary have been lost then, or in any of the thousands of days following, if she hadn’t been taken with Furiosa?

In a daze, Saffi roared across the sand and stopped to flank Furiosa and the massive rig. Her rifle came out on instinct, but she did not see a threat. Neither did Valkyrie, who was clinging hard to Furiosa.

“Something in the eyes,” Miriam was saying. “Perhaps this is Jobassa’s child.”

 _Oh, but she was,_ Saffi’s soul was singing. _Look past the pains and the changes and the years. Can you not see Mary’s eyes, her jaw, the set of her shoulders?_ Choking on her emotions, she didn’t need to hear Valkyrie’s declaration to know the truth.

It took a few moments longer, but she finally forced the words out of her mouth. “Furiosa. What happened to your mother?”

“She died. On the third day.”

The world rocked and shifted around Saffi again. Blood sang loud in her ears, but no tears came to her eyes. Pain lanced through her chest, but at the same moment, she felt a sense of peace. At least she knew now that Mary was gone, was never coming back. Her soul had always known, but her heart and hope had refused to believe. She reached out to gather Mary’s memory to her heart and held her hand there for a long moment.

Mary Jobassa The Bullet Singer was dead. But her daughter still lived on. And that was a new sort of hope.

*

They took the bikes and rig a few klicks away from the tower and camped out on the edges of The Plains of Silence. Rumor always held that there was green on the other side, and it marked the furthest the Vuvalini would travel. As night fell, Saffi made her way to Furiosa. After the explosion of grief and rage, Furiosa had reined herself in hard, but all her edges were raw. Even Valkyrie had kept her distance.

“I thought… I thought we almost could go back, like it was before, when I first held her again,” she admitted to Saffi as they set up camp. The young women were helping, as were the men, but Furiosa had isolated herself by the rig, taking tally of the supplies left in it.

“Your souls still fit together, Valkyrie. But the edges are worn a bit, and the colors and patterns have changed. But you two are still soul sisters.”

Valkyrie took a deep breath and shook her hair around her face to mask her expression. “I know. But I can’t imagine what she went through, in those seven thousand days, and I can’t touch her now, can’t fix it… I never thought I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Give it time.” She picked up a blanket and looked towards the rig again; it was almost fully dark. “Let me talk with her a moment?”

Valkyrie nodded.

Saffi crossed the sand slowly, and Furiosa turned when she heard her footsteps. Her eyes flickered to the group, and then she jerked her head and started around to the other side of the rig. Once out of the sight line of the others, her shoulders sagged and she turned to Saffi.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry she didn’t come back with me. But I’m not sorry she was spared those seven thousand days.”

“It’s done. It is what it is,” Saffi’s heart constricted, but the pain had faded towards peace. Mary had been gone to her for nearly twenty years. It hurt, it would never stop hurting, but at last she could put the memories to rest. “We have you again, Furiosa. And you have us again as well, as well as your young women and those two men. It’s not as the Many Mothers and the Vuvalini were that you remember, but it’s not nothing.”

Furiosa took a deep breath and nodded. “I want to cross the salt. Get to the green they say is on the other side. There is nothing to do but keep moving. The rig has the supplies that we could do it.” The wind kicked up then, and she shivered.

Saffi held out the blanket to her. “I’ll tell the others we need to talk.”

Carefully, Furiosa took the blanket, hesitated and then started to reach out towards Saffi before stopping herself.

“It’s alright, child.” Saffi lifted her arm and cupped the back of Furiosa’s head, touching foreheads before Furiosa leaned a little and rested her head on Saffi’s shoulder for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said again as she straightened.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Saffi swallowed back the edge of tears. “Now, wrap that blanket around yourself so you don’t get chilled by the night wind. And I hope Miriam and Annie managed to find some extra wraps for those girls, too.”

Furiosa complied, face easing towards neutral and perhaps just the hint of a smile. “Tell the others that I’ll be there in a moment, to talk about the salt.”

Saffi walked back around the rig, but paused before rejoining the others. She smiled a little and looked back to the west.

“I’ll do my best to look after your girl, Mary,” she whispered. “She’s everything you named her for and made her to be and more. Be proud and rest, sister.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by this Tumblr post: http://schwarmerei1.tumblr.com/post/131273919399/today-in-feels-vuvalini-melita-jurisic , as well as my own headcanons. All mistakes seen here are mine, as I do not have a beta reader.


End file.
